from The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe

In general, I’m not a big fan of wine competitions. Between the research papers suggesting that judges are wildly inconsistent, and the fact that medals seem to be awarded to a huge percentage of the entries– wine competitions just don’t seem to be as meaningful, and informative for consumers, as they might ideally be.

Despite the fact that here at Justice Grace Vineyards I’ve have a hard time letting go of my ideals at any point along the path, I decided to enter a single Petite Sirah into the 2013 SF Chronicle Wine competition, for this first time. Lo and behold we were just awarded with a “Double Gold”, placing our 2010 Wolff Vineyards, on this particular day anyway, near the very top of dozens and dozens of Petite Sirah’s priced above $20.00 a bottle.

As I opened the envelope and read the results, my brain had just finished processing the words when I also “heard” the booming voice of an old-timer I once worked for, as he often used to say: “Better than a kick in the pants…”

Indeed. When I got the news, I was relieved and excited. Then, I was swept away in reflection. Ten years of winemaking. Along the way, the juice that propelled me were the many kind words, smiles and genuine enthusiasm heard from consumers and industry insiders alike. Yet, because of my nature, it is more likely that the handful of not-so-nice, spit bucket dumping, non-plussed faces (frowns if you will) ferment in my mind.

Like the ones who grab a glass, taste without paying much attention, turn to me and say, “I really don’t like Merlot anyway” (but it’s a Petite Sirah!). In the same day you might hear, “It’s too sweet”, “It’s too dry”, “It’s too big”, “It’s not big enough”, “I usually only like whites anyway”, or “it wasn’t the worst wine I’ve had today.” The professional tasters are only slightly less confounding: in one day, you might hear industry veterans add, “I pick up a green note I don’t like”, or “I pick up an intriguing green note that I love”, and “It’s not big enough for our customers”, or “It’s too big for our customers”.

How all of these remarks affected me has varied in intensity with each passing year. My emotions ranged from exuberant to broken-hearted in the early years– and to be honest, depending on the source, still have that potential. After all, I have worked tirelessly for ten long years trying to put my heart and soul into each and every bottle (and a little of my boy’s huge heart as well). It’s hard not to associate those tasters who like “it”, with the notion that they like “me”, and vice versa. In many respects, Shoe Shine Wine, is me.

Buddhism has taught me (my apologies to the real practitioners out there) about the “Middle Way.” Not too high, nor too low. And grasping for more of one, and the end of the other, nevermore. Sounds nice. And for the most part, it has helped in managing the emotional impact of getting such contrasting feedback from consumers and professionals alike. For my taste and goals, the “Middle Way” has no place in winemaking itself, but it has everything to do with having the self-confidence and insight to chart our unique course.

But here is where it gets trickier: sales. While professionals certainly influence the taste expectations and even generate pre-conceived notions about certain wines, consumers increasingly have a palate of their own. And reports are suggesting that as consumers rely more heavily on friends (“taste buds”?) and social media for recommendations, their range of taste influencers is expanding beyond the traditional trend setters. They are open to what tastes good to them, vs. “how it’s supposed to be.”

The industry is responding. Led by boutique wineries, new winemaking approaches to traditional varietals are revealing newfound complexities in the grapes, and new varietals are being introduced.

If you are grounded, and Open to it, all feedback is good. Helpful even. I doubt many businesses have been successful ignoring customer feedback, whether they believed it at the time, or not. So if it is true that professionals and traditional wine media gatekeepers are having a lesser role in shaping taste preferences, and more experienced consumers are trusting themselves more — who do I listen to more as I shape my winemaking direction to succeed in this hyper competitive marketplace?

Or do I at all? Am I a leader, or a follower? Innovator or lemming?

A few days before our 2010 Wolff Vineyards Petite Sirah was awarded the “Double Gold”, I was informed by the wine buyer for a long-time customer (whom I highly respect), that the same wine wasn’t as well received by his customers as other wines, from another vineyard, in the past. And, surprisingly, he didn’t place a re-order. My personal experience directly pouring this wine for consumers and professionals alike, has been exceptionally positive. In fact, it was so positive that this was the wine I chose to enter into the competition. Yet I can vividly recall when this wine buyer tasted my recent lineup that he was less than enthused. I could tell that he was reluctant to continue to support me at this time. He offered critical feedback– which I asked for, and absolutely want.

Does the medal award in this notable competition change anything as I shape my winemaking style going forward? Do his comments, instead? How about all of the other wide ranging direct consumer and industry feedback? What about the relative sales of the wines as an indication of style direction?

The Ups-and-Downs of any given wine, on any given day, can make a heartfelt winemaker’s head spin.

Take thy tongue from out my heart, and thy medal from out my hand.

Quoth the Buddha: “Nevermore”.

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First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me

Pastor Martin Niemoller, 1946

I am reminded of this haunting quote from Pastor Martin Niemoller, when I consider the current state of the economy and labor markets around the world. I know the use of this quote, which has become a passionate cry worldwide about the horrors of political apathy, may at first seem an overreach.

Two observations: over the past 40 years, there has been a steady and severe erosion in the wages, benefits, and financial security of the working class, which has engulfed more and more job categories and plunged a staggering 46+ million Americans into poverty. Secondly, while the Occupy movement, and recent Walmart worker strikes have stirred some measure of public outcry, the response of most of the US middle-class while the assault on worker’s rights and living conditions proceeded unabated for decades, has been shockingly quiet.

The courageous worker-led strikes/ actions at nearly 1,000 stores of our nation’s largest retailer (and largest food retailer), Walmart, on Black Friday, are nothing short of monumental. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich points out, the 40 year attack on worker’s rights and wages were made possible, in part, by the precipitous decline of labor union power and representation. As the number of private sector workers enrolled in unions has plummeted, so too has worker bargaining power; and with it wages, benefits, and in the past year, even an offensive led by Wisconsin Governor Walker against what the UN long ago deemed a universal human right: the right to collectively bargain.

It wasn’t always so. Leading up to the turn of the 20th century, the working class was united, enraged, and active. Sidney Lens, writes in The Labor Wars: “…in the quarter of a century of enormous economic growth from 1881 to 1905, there were 38,303 strikes and lockouts, involving seven and a half million workers.” Violence was common in those days, and joining a strike risked more than your family’s sustenance. Their courage earned all workers an eight hour workday, a spotlight on child labor, better wages and working conditions, and restored some sense of human dignity.

In the past few months at Walmart, workers brilliantly decided that, as a first step perhaps,  rather than embark on the colossal task of winning union representation at the nation’s most notorious anti-union corporation (which could take years), these heroic and fed-up workers would simply organize themselves organically. They rallied together under the banner OUR Walmart. They quickly appealed to consumers directly with their pleas for an end to chaotic “just-in-time” scheduling, safer working conditions, more hours, better wages, access to affordable healthcare, and an end to corporate retaliations for simply speaking out. Walmart’s goliath legal team has thusfar struggled to use anti-union labor laws to prevent OUR Walmart’s actions.

Not only is their organizing choice remarkable (and effective), but they have also chosen to enlist consumers directly, via a tactic which I believe to be dramatically underutilized: boycotts. Consumer spending is by far, the biggest driver of the US economy. As such, consumers wield enormous power– but they don’t use it effectively as an agent of change. In fact, consumers collective apathy in doing so only emboldens corporate exploitation and entrenches old actions which have gone unaccountable.

Tired of waiting for large corporations to do the right thing?

Profiting via exploitation (people or the planet) in the ongoing race-to-the-bottom is common across all industries: see recent revelations at Apple/ Foxconn, Hershey’s use of child labor, Gap/ H&M, Abercrombie garment workers, Wall St./Big Banks, Ikea’s use of forced labor in the ’80′s, Hyatt Hotels, Lonmin mines, BP’s history, and CA farmworkers to scratch the surface.

As consumers, you don’t have to wait for years while executives avoid accountability, and legislators pass the buck– you can effect change immediately! Simply stop spending any money at these institutions. How powerful would the banks “too big to fail” be if consumers withdrew all of their checking/ savings/ mutual fund and retirement account assets?

Businesses have both fixed and variable costs. The more fixed costs are, as a percent of total expenses (i.e. big-box retailers), the greater the power of the consumer can be to effect the change they desire. Simply put, if only 20% of revenues decline (which may require less than 20% of the customers to act), a company with high fixed costs would see profits plummet at a far greater rate. Want to get the company’s bonus fixated executive’s attention? Stop shopping there!

A village can do more than just raise a child– it can also raze a business.

For Walmart, there can simply be no reasonable doubt as to whether they have the economic means to provide work with dignity (despite the rhetoric to the contrary). In their last Fiscal Year ending January 2012, Walmart reported profits of $16 Billion, and more importantly, more than $10 Billion in Free Cash Flow1. For the past three fiscal years alone, the company reported $30 Billion in Free Cash Flow (i.e. taken to the bank). Interestingly, “Grocery” is by far the greatest single engine of revenues at Walmart’s US operation, accounting for 55% of revenues (4 x greater than the second largest contributor). While earning these gigantic annual profits and cash flow, the employees who worked their butts off to generate such riches, earned on average $8.81 per hour, or $18,000 per year (pre-tax).

Apologists, for the relentless corporate desire to reduce wages and benefits as a percent of revenues, offer a few common justifications. This trend is a material and obvious reason the disparity between rich and poor has never been greater in this country, and more than 1:7 Americans finds themselves in poverty, so lets examine their argument:

By default, these wages are “fair”. The employees are “unskilled” and the “free market” has created a market clearing price to attract these workers. If they would only get a decent education they could easily improve their lot in life. They should stop whining and go to school!

Many of us are all too familiar with the many subsidies and trade barriers/ tariffs which interfere with the so-called “free market” across all industries, and create harmful incentives and distortions, leading to poor health, food insecurity, environmental devastation, and widespread hunger and poverty worldwide. The same shell game is evident in the labor market: over the past 40 years Corporate America has managed to pawn off the responsibility of decent wages and benefits from their own Income Statement to the taxes of the middle-class. As a 2004 UC Berkeley study highlighted, while Walmart workers earn poverty wages, they rely to a huge extent on public safety nets from financially desperate municipalities to cover the costs of healthcare, housing subsidies, and food stamps.

Those “benefits” are paid for by the middle-class taxpayer, whether they are Walmart customers or not. While the company receives attractive tax incentives to locate a store in an economically desperate town, Walmart pawns off expenses related to their employees living standards to those same cash strapped cities, states and taxpayers. Retailers in the US may not be able to outsource the humans who unload the cargo at the shipyard, repackage and haul the goods at the warehouse, stock the shelves, and take your cash– but they have been outsourcing Corporate Responsibility and human decency for decades.

Let there be no doubt: it is only because of the current willingness of always-on-sale legislators to maintain this shell game for Corporate America, that Walmart is able to maintain poverty wages for its 1.3 million workers. Without the public safety net, surely out of desperation, tens of millions of workers all across America would be waging 20th century strikes. I wonder what the size and impact of those actions would be when news of such could spread immediately vs. the difficulties of 100 years ago when more than seven million people acted, largely via word of mouth.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 7 of the top 10 fastest growing job categories over the next decade are low-wage ones. And as the National Employment Law Project makes clear in their 2012 report “Big Business, Corporate Profits and the Minimum Wage”, many of these poverty wage jobs are in the Food sector.

Farmworkers and domestic workers were hardly ever given any respect or rights to be taken away. But “they” have come for the miners, rail workers, garment workers, longshoremen, truckers, steel workers, auto workers, air traffic controllers, teachers, Food Chain workers, hotel workers, airline pilots, health care workers, postal workers and the strongest bastion of unions today: public sector employees.

Will they come for you?

Workers of the world unite– you have nothing to lose but your chain-stores.

What can you do?

- Buy Local
- Sponsor a striker at Walmart
- Support unions and public sector employees in your community: find them and connect via social media !
- Show Up ! Walk a picket-line, and support boycotts by shopping at local businesses
- Wield the enormous power in your wallet: only spend/ keep money at businesses that embody your values (including Credit Unions vs. Big Banks)

1. “Free Cash Flow” is annual cash retained after capital expenditures, which are re-invested back in the business

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The Need for Human Cloning:

As a sole proprietor, just like most, I am jack-of-all trades, and master of none. Not because of masochistic tendencies, but simply because of money. Can’t afford to pay anyone, not even yourself.

Justice Grace Vineyards, the 1 1/2 person (me and my 6 year old boy) winery that it is, is somewhat unique in the current world of “custom crush” enabled wineries, in that, from the very beginning, I wanted to do everything myself. Especially the wine related functions: securing and working in vineyards, winemaking, bottling and delivery to the customer. This is in stark contrast to the hundreds of “wineries” that pay someone to source grapes from big name vineyards, and also make the wine for them. You will not ever know this from their marketing. In fact, you might even get the impression that they are completely hands-on in all of these areas. In contrast, the painstaking path I have chosen has required me to try to develop skills and knowledge in a number of areas, as you will see below. As a result, I can feel proud about what’s in every bottle, and ensure that the quality meets my high standards.

This blog post is one in a series about the Life and Times of my micro-Winery, Justice Grace Vineyards. I thought it might be interesting to start with a glimpse of the many roles and skills that I needed to learn from scratch when I made the leap into this new life, and continue to refine over the past 10 years. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been unbelievably exciting, challenging, chaotic, rewarding and fun.

I wouldn’t have it any other way…

I’ll try to break down the responsibilities into categories where in some larger wineries, there might be separate people dedicated to such tasks. Here at JGV // Shoe Shine Wine, it’s all me…

1) Business Owner/ Manager:

- Create vision for company and make sure all efforts are aligned. Constantly   re-evaluate
- Form corporate entity and maintain annually
- Obtain Insurance annually

2) Compliance Officer:

- Obtain business and wine specific permits at Federal, State, and Local level. Maintain annually.
- Obtain label approvals for bottling

 3) Accounting

- Bookkeeping
- Bill Pay, Accounts collection
- Taxes

 4) Brand Manager

- Create and develop brand(s)
- Guide graphics designers/ artists to collaborate
- Community engagement, activist campaigns
- Web site content

5) Vineyard/ Grower Relations:

- Vineyard research/ selection
- Vineyard work prior to Harvest (if permitted)
- Haul grapes during Harvest from vineyard to winery

 6) Winemaker

- Develop unique style
- Refine and innovate approach per vineyard or varietal
- Play with Barrels/ Coopers per vineyard or varietal
- Experiment Experiment Experiment
- Listen to customers and be open to tweaking… Yada Yada, repeat

7) Bottler:

- Hand bottle All wines
- Hand label all bottles
- “Capsules”: buy fabric > hand cut and hand-tie around each bottle over cork
- Haul case goods to warehouse

8) Vendor Selection:

- Research, solicit quotes and acquire equipment
- Barrel/ Coopers: acquire and manage inventory/ usage. New vs Used
- Printer for Labels
- Corks
- Glass: annual changes based on unusual requirements and availability

9) PR/ Media relations:

- Initiate and develop media relations and interest
- Pray

10) Marketing:

- Social Media: develop strategy, stay up-to-date, try to stay calm, and do something/ anything: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest etc
- Write content for Blog
- Drink your wines often: for “accurate” Tasting Notes, of course
- Update all Web Site Content
- Manage Community donation requests
- Arrange private dinners and Presentations
- Research Industry developments

11) Sales:

- Cold-call restaurants, wine bars, retailers
- Meditate/ accept/ and come to terms with being ignored… Repeat
- Go to same exact places the next opportunity.
- Meditate/ accept/ and come to terms with being ignored… Repeat
- Give up and engage consumers directly
- Schedule conference call with Accountant (yourself).
- Limit your complaints about the sales manager’s performance to 5 minutes
- Go back to cold-calling

12) Distribution:

- Schedule deliveries with individual customers
- Hand deliver all sales
- Manage Inventory at multiple wine warehouses

13) Customer/ Community Relations:

- Communicate/ respond to customer inquiries, donation requests
- Maintain customer database

14) Child Entertainer:

- Keep young boy interested at winery so he doesn’t wander off into de-stemmer unattended

15) Wine Photographer

- Because I have so much free time!

16) Social Justice

- Participate in and Support campaigns as much as humanly possible
- Research campaigns for future support and involvement

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The romantic me (above in Tuscany in 1994) at 26 years old, thought it was so easy to see. Such a beautiful life, I concluded: grounded to the Earth and the seasons, the reward of honing skills over many years and hand-crafting something that brings pleasure, the connection to history and vintners worldwide over many centuries, and the ability to exercise artistry, passion and vision in one place.

The idealistic me, at 38 years old, knew it all seemed so utterly necessary. After 15 years working my butt off around the clock in NYC while straddling steep learning curves in labor and life (which only left me feeling completely hollow and knowing little joy) I left my paying job behind. I had 3 small vintages under my fingernails and belt, and that small taste of the life envisioned by my romantic and idealistic selves was too much to keep at bay any longer. I embraced a new life’s path with heartfelt gusto, and soon thereafter learned I was navigating unskilled, unclear, and uncertain.

Where, during those 12 long years of learning, waiting, and drinking, was my realistic self?

If you drink enough wine, and are too lazy (or reluctant) to wash out your wine glass, in time all of your glasses become rose colored, it seems. In and of itself, that is not so bad. We are here, perhaps, for only one life. And this, beyond any doubt imaginable, is the life for me and my boy.

Miraculously, this year 2012, brings with it the 10th Harvest for Shoe Shine Wine. I suppose when it comes to a whole life’s journey “ten” should be fairly meaningless on its own, except that as I write this, I find myself facing the expectations formed from a decade of learning, dreaming, and doing. Shouldn’t I be further along? Shouldn’t the path to “success” be clearer? Shouldn’t I feel more secure about the future? Shouldn’t I be swimming in medals and basking under the glow of the adoring media sun? Ahhh, this is where my annoying inner-critic self is heard. Bad timing as always.

Life isn’t easy. And most certainly, the life and times of a 1 1/2 person micro-winery ain’t. Not yet anyway. But perspective, the vineyards, and hard work keep me grounded. As we learned earlier this month, the Census Bureau reported that 46 million Americans live in poverty– many of whom in families where someone works full time — in our nation of abundance. Foreclosures, cuts to public education and food security, and affordable healthcare, all continue to be daily scourges for tens of millions of our neighbors. “Austerity” measures imposed by legislators and bankers worldwide are creating devastating pain among the very victims of past crimes and injustices perpetrated by those same bankers. All-in-all, making a “luxury good”, no matter how difficult, just doesn’t compare. Life — the life of a micro-Winery– is good.

From the outside, where I once stood fondly as well, it’s hard to see the challenges that a small winery faces. It’s hard to imagine the steep learning curve, the many obstacles, and the struggles. Through the past 10 years I’ve grown quite a bit, and have come to passionately appreciate, value, and support the independent local voices and businesses that touch my life. I know, first hand, how much my personal values are best reflected in the shared beliefs and toil of my neighbor, rather than that of a multi-national corporation. And through the efforts of Justice Grace Vineyards // Shoe Shine Wine I realize just how dependent those voices are, on gaining the trust and support of their neighbors, for survival.

In that vein I’d like to share some of what life has been over these past 10 years, as a new micro-Winery, in the ultra-competitive wine market. With 100,000 wines introduced into the US every year, it is surely among the most competitive markets anywhere in the world. Maybe you will come to appreciate what it has taken, and the towering tasks that lie ahead. Maybe you will, as I once did, hear only of the romance, and delight in the intoxicating vision. Or maybe you will simply wonder why I didn’t listen to my, apparently bashful, realistic self.

No matter. It’s all good.
Such is life.

…Part II to come

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Like many Living Wage ordinances, this one would also only apply to employers who receive city subsidies, in this case more than $1 million. It would raise pay to $11.50 an hour, or roughly $24,000 per year for those without benefits (vs. the state minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, or roughly $15,000 annually) , and $10 per hour with benefits. Advocates of the bill even admit that currently this would affect roughly 600 total workers, this in the largest (and perhaps most expensive) city in the US, with a population of over 8 million people.

Apparently, on his weekly radio address, Mayor Bloomberg was reported as saying about the bill:

“Not good for employers. But if you force that you will just drive businesses out of the city. You just cannot force employers to pay a rate that isn’t sustainable in their business.”

Ignoring for the moment the many well researched papers (incl. one from CEPR ) and on the minimal effect of employment in cities adopting similar Living Wage ordinances, and the fact that this bill would affect such a miniscule number of workers among the multitudes similarly asking for dignity, what struck me about Mayor Bloomberg’s comment was his use of the hopelessly meaningless word, “sustainable”.

His argument rests on the notion that society should somehow condone, and by inference support businesses built on exploitation– simply because that was in their business plan.

This is the argument successfully put forth to legislators behind the multi-decade outsourcing of corporate responsibility to America’s labor force and working families: seen in the precipitous decline of real wages, the heartless attack on retiree pensions, the shrinking of benefits and full-time employment, the deterioration of working conditions affecting worker safety, the irresponsible destruction of the environment, and the recent assault on what the United Nations long ago declared a universal human right: the right to collective bargaining.

Businesses are able to convince their paid-for representatives that paying a Living Wage, a pension, health care, providing adequate worker safety and environmental protections are simply beyond the means of today’s competitive business climate. All the while, asking you to look the other way each quarter as they report their obscene profits to their sycophant friends on Wall Street– who promptly reward the same corporate executives with higher stock prices on their ill gotten options.

And the beat goes on.

More money to the executives. More money to keep legislators in office.
And a steeper path to poverty for everyone else.

Meanwhile, municipalities (strike that– the middle class) are asked to pick up the tab of working people living in poverty in their own communities. Food pantries straining to meet massive rises in food insecurity, emergency room’s bruised from the uninsured using the ER as their general practitioner, mounting housing subsidies and neighborhood blight from malicious foreclosures, and environmental apathy and destruction. The very victims of this travesty are asked to pay for what corporations should be paying for out of their profits– and THIS is what should be in their business plans.

How about a new “sustainable” means test for city business permits in the most wealthy of all US cities: an employer requirement that all employees are paid a Living Wage–

or “no license for You”?

I am grateful for so many things in my life. Truly.

Sometimes, I admit, despite such good fortune, it is hard to remain firmly grounded in all of the beauty of my life, and this world. What tends to bring me back, more often than not, is Passion.

I’ve been lucky. When I was coming of age there were lots of friends and acquaintances in my Gen X community who were lost. They didn’t really know what they wanted to do, or where they were headed. Many years passed and despite searching with a profound (and perhaps misapplied) sense of urgency, they struggled to come up with the “answers”. This only added frustration, and a bit of depression to their lives…

Me? I’ve always had lots of things I was passionate about. And those passions are what keep me alive: my heart racing, soul ever dreaming, mind captivated by idealistic notions of what-can-be, striving to make a difference and upend societal values that cause so much harm to an incomprehensible many, yearning to share life with someone truly special– with a connection like no other.

This little winery encompasses many of those passions. That is what makes it so intense for me, but also so indescribably beautiful. I have been able to weave my love of crafting something with my hands– something firmly rooted in the soil, and the cycle of the seasons– with my artistic inclinations (winemaking and photography), social justice missions, and of course, watching the business grow while my beautiful boy grows in, and along side, of it.

Sometimes it feels like the success of Shoe Shine Wine // Justice Grace Vineyards is nothing short of a real-time referendum on my own deeply held joys and dreams. Of me, itself. I’m sure it feels that way for many family owned businesses across the world.

When I get a moment to come up for air, and a moment of peace to reflect, I realize that I will always continue to pursue my passions, whether the business achieves all that I had hoped, or not. Those passions are as much a part of me, as any part of my body. And they bring me so much of the joy I feel in this world everyday. I can only hope that you get just a glimpse of that from sharing a bottle of Shoe Shine Wine, or lost in thought while looking at one of the abstract winemaking photos. I tried to put it all in there.

I really did.

Please See Part I, previous Post…

Consumer Culture:

This even permeates the companies we idolize. Google, the self-proclaimed “Do no harm” company, one of the most well known brands in the world, derives roughly 97% of its revenues from advertising. While organizing the world’s information, they also seem to be indexing your emails, following you on your trips, and storing your searches; generally motivated to create products which enable them to capture more information about you so that they may place ever more “useful” ads in front of your face.

Recently, a frenzy of speculation and wealth was bestowed to another company, Groupon. While Capitalism seems to instill a sense of competition and antagonism among us in so many ways, the one place it is now encouraging us to pull together– is shopping.

Sadly, I think Groupon might be the perfect embodiment of Adam Smith’s theory: You “save” so that We All “save”.

The constant media frenzy around the massive fortunes earned in and around Wall Street, the consumer culture and ad driven paradigm we drown in; this is what feeds the quest for the so called “American Dream”. The desperate quest that results is what opens the door for predators, and speculative bubbles.

Bizarro World of Capitalists:

In October 2009, the New York Times reported what should be an inconceivable fact: that “over the last decade the financial sector was the fastest growing part of the economy, with two-thirds of growth in gross domestic product attributable to the incomes of workers in finance.”

During the recent housing bubble, the commercial and investment banks (Wells Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs et.al.), committed one shameful fraud after another– to millions of people. Institutionalized cultures of exploitation enabled employees up and down the line to do this for years during the bubble (earning massive bonuses along the way), and astoundingly, even after they received bailout money. Yet people still have their checking and savings accounts, and retirement plans at these institutions?

In the bizarro world of Capitalism, the victims become the scoundrels, and the sheisters themselves ask their legislative contract labor for bailouts from their very targets… And get them.

Confounding Paradigm:

Practically speaking, the fate of much of the world rests with corporations, and by extension, Capitalism. Distressingly, in the US, our banking, housing, energy, healthcare, education, and manufacturing sectors are currently all in crisis. Even the Earth itself is in crisis. If human suffering were the sole indicator of success in improving “the lot of ordinary people”, mass populations would have to look with incredulity at their leaders as they continue to assent to world bankers and economists given the solemn evidence on the ground for the past few decades.

Perhaps they might even revolt.

On the whole however, it is not the citizenry, but Capitalism and business-as-usual, that rages ahead.Mainstream media has managed to frame the discussion during this time of crisis as simply “How to fix” what ails these industries; while neglecting to consider whether the system itself is fatally flawed to its core.

In the Bizarro world of the Capitalist paradigm:

• man-made resources are scarce, while natural resources are limitless

• the richest nation on earth has an abundance of scarcity: greed, fear, and antagonism towards your neighbors result

• you build a community to shop together, but antagonize the community that cares for children, the disabled, or elderly

• you buy material things to feel free

• low-price to you (today) is more important than low-cost to society (or much more expensive to you tomorrow)

• outsized monetary rewards are to be earned through exploitation rather than nurturing or caregiving

• we demonize the working class while celebrating the monopolists, barons, and tax cheats

• labor is a cost center within a profit driven business, to be reduced or eliminated over time; but at the same time is also corporate america’s biggest customer

• consumers have become so accustomed to corporate amorality and fraud, that actually prosecuting executives for misdeeds is the outlier

• banks are “too big to fail”– even though, they already have

• the super-rich ask for, and receive, financial “bail-outs”, from those woefully less fortunate than themselves. And get it.

• our consumer culture is so dominant, we have accepted the sale of our own democracy

• you “support the troops” by sending them into harm’s way, on behalf of our nation’s “interests” without the armor they need to survive, but you are unpatriotic if you demand their safe return home

At the end of the day, it seems to me that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is controlled by the mind of a psychopath.

New Paradigm, “Alternative Business Models”, Coming?:

Stephen Covey, in his influential “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, notes:

“The term paradigm shift was introduced by Thomas Kuhn in his highly influential landmark book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn shows how almost every significant breakthrough in the field of scientific endeavor is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms.”

What will it take to change the widespread view that Capitalism is mankind’s greatest benefactor?

Ordinary folks breaking through the endless 24 hour news cycle noise (produced and paid for by corporations) with eyes open wide, and heart ready to feel compassion and empathy for your neighbors once again. And supporting their neighbor’s efforts with every means at their disposal.

I might know. I wasted 15 years of my adult life in New York City’s financial sector, ever-so-slowly opening my eyes, largely in disbelief.

Now, I actually can believe them again.

“Your paradigm is so intrinsic to your mental process that you are hardly aware of its existence, until you try to communicate with someone with a different paradigm.”

Donella Meadows, The Global Citizen

Paradigms, are a powerful thing. Shaped by all of our trusted influences– family, friends, associates, religious organizations, schools, and the media, we are conditioned over our lifetimes to believe certain “truths”, and these paradigms become the lenses through which we view ourselves and the world around us. So powerful are they that sometimes they persist despite a lifetime of unique experiences which contradict such beliefs. In other words, we don’t even believe our own eyes.

Nobel winning economist Milton Friedman, once noted of Capitalism:

“The record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of ordinary people, that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.”

As the world increasingly turns to notions of “free-markets”, privatization, global capital markets, deregulation, privately funded elections, and the “austerity” demands of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, it certainly seems that world leaders increasingly share this rosy view.

Capitalism’s paradigm:

In the 18th century, as Capitalism was taking shape, philosopher Adam Smith famously wrote of an “invisible hand” that guided self-interested individuals and shaped markets, ultimately leading to the greatest benefit to society at large.

Of the individual, he writes in “The Wealth of Nations”,

“By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”

For more than 250 years, this notion of pursuing self-interest, both for your own benefit and ultimately for society at large, has fashioned not only economic discourse, but political as well. It is believed that a certain Darwinian-type natural selection process will occur, and that resources, in the form of labor and capital, will flow freely to those offering the greatest return on such. This, combined with a “laissez-faire” policy of little government interference in the efficient allocation of resources by informed market players, will lead to great prosperity for mankind.

Above all else (i.e. people and the planet), individuals should be free to pursue self-interest, and businesses should be free to pursue profit.

How are We Doing?

Now let’s consider the human element: in particular, how are people served by, and how do they fare under this system?

With respect to the long regarded basic necessities of life (food, clothing, and shelter), despite the fact we have an abundance of all of these, structural issues of affordability and access lead to widespread and persistent supply-demand mismatches (i.e. those without).

For example, while tremendous progress has been made in alleviating world hunger, and despite producing more than enough carbohydrates to feed the world, food insecurity and malnourishment remain a daily scourge for nearly 1 billion people. Market mechanisms leading to increasing global volatility in food prices recently led Oxfam International to issue a warning that by 2030, the world may enter a period of permanent food crisis. Worldwide, the United Nations reports, incomprehensibly, that roughly one-third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted every single year. Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland offers similar estimates about the US, while at the same time there has been a dramatic increase in hunger over the past 3 years; shockingly, 49 million Americans now find themselves among the food-insecure.

In housing, many of the cities and towns ravaged by massive fraud perpetrated by commercial and investment banks (Wells Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America, et al) are sitting on troves of empty housing stock– despite widespread homelessness. Here in San Francisco, the Coalition on Homelessness reports that “According to US Census data as of 2010, there are over 36,000 housing units in San Francisco alone that are sitting vacant.” This, in a city widely viewed to have an intractable homeless problem, and a homeless population of roughly 6,500 souls.

I would also include healthcare and education among our basic necessities/ human rights. While there have been many miraculous inventions contributing to a rise in life expectancy in many parts of the world, in the US roughly 50 million people are without health insurance, and countless families have suffered indescribable indignities, and are in financial ruin, simply because someone got sick.

The mess in the public education system, at all levels, is tragic, beyond a tipping point, and still manages to grow worse every year. A permanent underclass is inevitable given the state of education in this country (ready to fill all those increasingly privatized prison cells, no doubt).

So while I would agree that under Capitalism we have made progress in providing for some of the basic necessities of life, and for improving the quality of life, Capitalism does not seem to be providing incentives for addressing issues around access, affordability or providing for the needs of the lower class (i.e. those without money). With tens of millions of Americans now food insecure, without health insurance or access to a worthy education, the “middle-class” is increasingly feeling anxiety and the detrimental effects of this systemic inadequacy as well.

But the problems of Capitalism seem to run deeper than just a supply- demand mismatch.

Values Inherent to Capitalism?:

It is a system seemingly lacking a heart and soul, and the bits of humanity that it self-servingly clings to get slowly withered away over time. It literally rewards exploitation– of people, animals, and the Earth– while simultaneously denigrating the nurturing or caregiving of others.

Scholar Riane Eisler, in “The Real Wealth of Nations”, writes:

“Indeed, this systemic devaluation of the activities that contribute the most to human welfare and development lies behind a kind of economic insanity. For example, the bulk of caring work is not even included in indicators of economic productivity such as GDP (gross domestic product) and GNP (gross national product).”

We know, for example, that we live in a nation of vast riches and resources.

Despite this, we are trained from the earliest age to believe in the myth that we live in an era of “scarcity” by our own making. Healthy food, a good education, access to affordable healthcare, jobs with dignity, money for public services; all of these we are told, are scarce, and you must therefore fight your neighbors, your friends, and those in your own community for your individual fair share of them.

“Us” vs “them”, survival of the fittest.

When jobs are scarce you are told that “illegal” immigrants are stealing them. Or, with nearly 1 in 7 adults un- or under-employed, that you are lucky to have any job at all, so you’ll need to accept lower wages and benefits (ongoing for the past 40 years now), a loss of privacy, or now the loss of what the United Nations long ago declared a universal human right– the right to collective bargaining.

You are told that rising health insurance costs are undoubtedly caused by poor people using the emergency room as their general practitioner, or having too many children (God forbid they want a family of their own, instead of just caring for yours).

Healthy food? Organics can’t be grown on a scale large enough to feed America. Genetically modified crops and oceans of pesticides are the only way we’ll feed the world. Poor people not having access to healthy food? There’s not enough to go around; and if there was, they wouldn’t want to eat it anyway.

You are conditioned through relentless messaging received in school, the media, workplace, and government, to believe in the need to fight with those in your own community, and that if you succeed in getting your share, you are lucky to have it. As a result, you soon forget your ideals of what’s ideally possible for society as a whole, and you lower your expectations to now what is personally tolerable.

Lastly, while we believe that man-made resources are “scarce” (simply because of the values of our leaders and powerbrokers) we confoundingly treat our true finite resource, the Earth, as if it were limitless.

A staggering thirty million Americans now take anti-depressants. It doesn’t surprise me.

Capitalism creates a culture of fear, competition and antagonism towards one another and it is this that allows for Police states, class warfare, bigotry, the politics of race and gender, the erosion of human rights, the denigration of the value of caregiving, and of human life itself.

Please see Part II for reasons to believe…

Welcome to the Justice Grace Vineyard blog. In this space you’ll find our passions, observations and commitments. Our mission as a winery is two fold: Social justice is as equally important as winemaking. Due to the dominant impact of business on our society, it is paramount for consumers to use their dollars to affect the greatest amount of social change with their purchases. As such, we feel it is as important for you to know about our heart and soul, as it is for you to enjoy our wines. Please join us in the conversation that both celebrates all that we have to be thankful for, and all that we can do to make a positive difference in the lives of the working poor.